Sky's no limit after 1986 Challenger disaster

McMillan, who taught for 38 years, is now 68 and still in San Diego. She remembers staggering into school the day after the disaster. Staggering. It’s her word.

“It was important for me to be in the classroom and to be able to deal with the students who were grieving,” she said. “It was my responsibility to help the students understand that you don’t give up.

“As soon as I came in, there were hugs all around for me.”

McMillan’s space quest began, as they all do, by facing the skies and fear.

She remembers growing up on an Oregon ranch, leaving the barn after milking cows and seeing stars “from horizon to horizon” and sensing some of “the mystery of what was beyond.”

Years later, when her husband and children encouraged her to apply for the teacher-in-space program, she wasn’t sure that she had it in her. So she rented “The Right Stuff.”

“I figured I had to be able to watch that movie,” she said. “We had a television upstairs at the time so I can remember sitting in bed, sitting up against the headboard and watching the launch and being there, being in the capsule and shaking, just shivering, just shaking, you know, because you’re riding a bomb. It’s an absolutely explosive bomb.

“My teeth rattled, and I decided that, ‘Yes, I could do this.’”

It’s the same decision she made after seven souls died aboard the Challenger.

“When you’re grieving, work is a wonderful antidote. It’s absolutely medicinal,” McMillan said. “You know, I asked my students, ‘How can we honor the Challenger seven?’ And they came up with things that they wanted to do, and classrooms across the country did. They made quilts and posters and wrote letters and wrote essays and poems, and there was a wonderful outpouring of creativity that was very, very healthy. Teachers and parents and adults helped them come to terms with the whole concept of taking a risk and failing, and picking up the pieces and moving forward.”

In the years that followed, McMillan shared her affinity for space with too many children to count. Her love became theirs.

“I felt that I had a responsibility even after the disaster to continue the education mission,” she said. “I knew it was meaningful because the kids told me it was meaningful.”

McMillan uses the word again — meaningful — to describe the anniversary of the explosion: “It’s not really a sad day. It’s important that we continue to push and we continue to learn and we continue to be curious and passionate about exploring every aspect of our environment.”

It’s a thought as uplifting as a rocket. Open envelopes, and push them.